Rantanen's 2 goals lead Avs past Flyers

EditorsNote: moves up material to new second graf; rewords seventh graf

Mikko Rantanen scored two goals, and Matt Nieto and Gabriel Landeskog each scored once to lift the visiting Colorado Avalanche past the Philadelphia Flyers 4-1 on Monday night.

Rantanen has at least one point in all nine of Colorado’s games this season. Nathan MacKinnon, who earned an assist on Rantanen’s goal, also owns at least one point in all nine games.

Colorado goaltender Semyon Varlamov stopped 37 shots for the team’s third win in a row.

Nolan Patrick scored for the Flyers, who fell one game below .500. Philadelphia goaltender Brian Elliott allowed three goals on 32 shots.

Rantanen gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead at 3:23 of the first period.

The Flyers put quite a bit of pressure on Varlamov through the first 12 minutes of the second period. At 8:01, Dale Weise fired a wrist shot which was deflected and into Varlamov for the save to preserve Colorado’s lead.

Philadelphia was repeatedly denied, and the Avalanche took advantage as they took a 2-0 lead on Nieto’s first goal of the season at 14:54 of the middle period. It was Nieto’s fifth career goal in 10 games against the Flyers.

The Flyers weren’t able to capitalize on their first two power plays, but they picked another one up at the end of the second, which carried over for 1:58 into the third. They didn’t score again, going 0-for-3 on the power play and making them 1-for-14 over the past five games.

Landeskog scored his eighth goal of the season and posted his fourth straight game with at least one for a 3-0 lead on the backhand at 2:25 of the third period.

The Flyers finally got on the board when Patrick redirected a shot in front for his second goal in two games at 3:26.

Elliott was pulled with 1:50 remaining, and Rantanen notched an empty-net goal at 18:45 for his second of the game and a 4-1 lead.